Transact is to accept digital signatures on most applications following a successful pilot with advisers over the past few weeks.
The platform had already expanded its scanned documents policies to reduce dependency on posted documents, but until now had been unable to accept e-signatures for transactions.
The move follows Transact’s recent launch of ‘Upload Documents’, which allows advisers to upload files directly to Transact Online.
Transact said its trial had shown that “education is key” in terms of integrating the new function into advisers’ businesses and that there was a “sequence of steps” advisers needed to take when using a digital signature provider.
Advisers are encouraged to make contact with their regional Transact adviser support manager who can take them through the steps they must take in order to get the function up and running.
Firms will be provided with a checklist to ensure advisers got the “fastest results every time”.
Glen Sweet, head of sales at Transact, said: "These two developments combined, digital signatures and Document Upload, provide advisers with improved process efficiency during their interactions with clients.
“Advisers who are interested in this development should contact us in order to get started."
E-signatures are slowly being accepted by platforms across the sector, with Nucleus introducing the function at the end of last month.
The coronavirus crisis sent the UK into lockdown on March 23, effectively ending face-to-face meetings between advisers and clients at the time.
This presented an issue for the platform industry, which still relied heavily on the use of wet signatures.
Platforms have moved relatively quickly to update these requirements — with Embark, True Potential and both Aegon platforms leading the paperless revolution — but lots still require a paper form with a wet signature for some processes.
imogen.tew@ft.com
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